He got up, slightly dizzy. Went to the bathroom, leaned both hands on the sink, and looked in the mirror. He suddenly understood that face of his, the elongated face with the sunken cheeks and the sad clown expression. Everything became clear. With complete simplicity he realized what his role in the play was, why he was designed this way, and what he had really been training for his entire life. Elisheva came in and asked if he was all right again. Shaul said yes. She asked if he needed the car the next evening, because "the girls" were meeting for one of their birthdays. It's okay, he said with pent-up cheer, I don't need the car tomorrow night. Beneath each of her words a small fire suddenly danced. Over and over he thought of how she had described Paul to him. An extreme individualist, a man of principle, and an idealist, a rare way of thinking. That was how she used to think of him, of Shaul, that's what drew her to him, but it turned out there was someone who offered her more. Strange, he always thought that if she found herself another man he would be completely different from him, someone physical and worldly in all his being, a farmer or a tour guide or an army man, certainly someone younger than him. To think that she had ended up going for someone of his ilk, only she had sought out a man who would be even more extreme than he was.
Later that night, when Elisheva undressed, he looked at her and immediately averted his eyes as if he had seen something forbidden. Every one of her movements was part of a dance that only now, apparently very late in the day, had revealed its complexity to him, its mystery. He looked at her with Paul's eyes, and she was attractive, ravishing. He stole looks at her. Her breasts fit Paul's large hands far better than his own. Maybe that's why they had grown after their marriage, not because of what he had always believed. He hugged his knees to his stomach, and like a lost and misguided bolt of lightning that had flashed in him years after the thunder had sounded, he felt what he had unknowingly expected, the cutting and painful snap of a huge and eternal whip-the law of nature itself. He closed his eyes and gloomily welcomed the sensation, the surrendered acceptance with which a crippled, damaged deer realizes that it must be shredded by the claws of a tiger.
She came and lay next to him with a sigh of relief, and clung to him as usual, and he flinched and withdrew and felt every hair on his body stand on end. What's going on? she asked, still tender. It's not because of that man, is it? Rubbish, someone squeaked from far away in the bends of his throat. That's your deal, not mine, please don't involve me in it. Elisheva propped herself up on one elbow and examined him closely: What do you mean, my deal? She laughed in surprise. It's your deal, he repeated, looking at the ceiling with a congealed smile, not mine. Just don't tell me about it. I don't want to know, he said. What I don't know won't hurt me. What are you talking about? she asked, and her forehead all at once became dark. What have you already been telling yourself? I'm not telling myself any-
thing, he went on, rejoicing a little, light as a headless bird who no longer has to bear the weight of its own head. I really don't want to meddle in things that don't concern me, and the last thing I want is to ruin it for you, but I have one small request: don't ever, ever, from this moment on, tell me anything more about him and you. Don't mention his name, don't even hint at it, just leave me out of it. God, Elisheva sighed, I can't believe it, you're starting up again? Again with this talk? We had a break from all this for a while. I'm not starting up anything, he explained with frozen calmness, I respect your privacy and your needs. I'm certainly aware that a woman such as yourself can't be satisfied by one man, certainly not a man like me, and I only ask that you be fair and spare me from what I don't need to know. But there's nothing to spare you from! she shouted. What are you talking about? Why are you making a mountain out of a molehill? Whether there is or there isn't, he said, I really don't know, and you just remember my request not to tell me anything at all! He yelled suddenly and angrily beat the mattress, and Elisheva jumped out of bed and stood up, and he could see the hem of her flimsy nightdress quivering. She looked at him and shook her head. Look at how you're getting yourself into this again, she said. Shauli, she begged, and there was sorrow in her voice, don't fall into this same trap again. Let me help you. But he spread the widest possible grin on his face and repeated that everything was fine. There's no need for you to waste your energies on me, you need all your energy for him now, and he pointed out that he was happy to see that something good had finally come of her job, and that he seemed like a nice man and was certainly worthy of being her boyfriend. And when he said "boyfriend" he felt a long tongue of fire licking his innards, and added that he would advise her not to tire him out too much, because he didn't look all that young, but luckily for him, Elisheva no longer heard that-she had taken her pillow and stormed off to sleep in the other room.
Shaul tightened his body and cuddled up with himself, and for several very long moments he sucked in the thick black blood that must have been waiting concealed in his body for many years. He congratulated himself and his sharp intuition for calling Paul her "boyfriend," because the moment he had said that he had sensed how true it was, and how easily he could be her boyfriend-not just a lover, but a boyfriend. Because for all his-as she said-individualism and originality and idealism and brilliance and depth and rarity and uniqueness and devilish talent and genius and so forth, you could easily tell how much he and she were alike in the really essential and important things, in a kind of domestic tenderness, in the natural warmth that emanated from them both, in the humanity that flowed from them, and even in some simplicity of the body, the forgiveness they both showed toward their bodies. Shaul could easily picture them engaged in all sorts of pleasant, relaxed domestic scenes, whose space Paul began to fill with his complacent presence and with a quiet promise of continuity and sequence which encompassed his large body and his lanky movements, and with his tranquil authori-tativeness, his complete and solid worldview, the massive self-confidence and ample personal charm, and his disposable charisma. Shaul felt a burning sensation in a new-old ulcer of the soul, and giggled to himself in surprise as he lay there stormily, ripped to shreds in a new and exciting way. Soon he also knew exactly what he had to do. He had almost no deliberations about whether or not he should spy on her, follow her, eavesdrop, snoop, because he felt it was beneath him, beneath the long worm that was putting down roots within him. He told himself that he believed in the slow, natural development of a relationship such as this, between him and her, because this kind of relationship must be gradually melded, with natural wisdom, like the ripening of a large and complex fruit, and for this sort of thing he has patience. More than that: he has respect for them, and he knows how to wait. He swore he would do anything, anything at all, so that she would not have to give up her real life, the place where she really existed in her entirety, in all her femininity and her vitality and her splendor, he thought, and his throat was tight and he didn't shout, didn't yell in a broken voice, but in-
haled and told himself he would live from now on alongside this lovely, healthy relationship as one who is fighting a long and stubborn battle, of which no one else could know. He would sit in his place without moving and would look at the story of her and Paul unfolding, coming into being out of the thousands of tiny details and facts and memories and secrets and breaths of passion and longing, and little lies, thousands, multitudes of lies, which would slowly become the truth of his life. And all this he knew, or guessed with certainty, as early as that black night of nuptials, as he lay there tense, feeling his body changing and becoming another. Even his body. Because for all those years he had been immersed in the solution of her lie, loved only as an echo. As he should be, he thought. He was enchanted by his realization of how Elisheva had known to love him just the way he deserved, no more, while she herself must have contained a love that boiled and bubbled far beyond his narrow borders and meager strengths.